Award Winners / Artist Profile

Gregory Spatz

About the Artist

Gregory Spatz (Spokane) received his MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Previously, he taught fiction at the University of Iowa and the University of Memphis. Spatz’s first novel, No One But Us, was published by Algonquin Books (1995). Stories from his recent collection, Wonderful Tricks, were included in Best American Short Stories: 100 Distinguished Stories of the Year (1994 and 1997). Spatz is the recipient of fellowships from the Michener-Copernicus Society of America (1996) and Breadloaf (1996), as well as a GAP award from Artist Trust (1999). He was a finalist for the 2000 Flannery O’Connor Award in short fiction, winner of the 2000 Mid-List Press First Series Award in short fiction, and recipient of a 2003 Washington State Book Award for Wonderful Tricks. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Glimmer Train Stories, The Iowa Review, Epoch, Indiana Review, The Journal, Shenandoah, and The New England Review, among others.

Gregory received a 2010 GAP to continue work on a new novel, ICE MASTERS. ICE MASTERS is partly an historical novel concerning Spatz’s great-great uncle, Arctic explorer, John Franklin. Franklin, in what was by far the best funded and most celebrated Arctic expedition of all time, went to seek the Northwest Passage in 1845 and was never heard from again. His wife, Jane Franklin, years after the British Admiralty had given up hope of ever finding Franklin (and his 100+ seamen), never ceased in her efforts at raising money to send search parties after him until, 33 search expeditions and 35,000 pounds sterling later, remains were found. Franklin’s story is the single worst and most tragic in all of Arctic exploration.

Gregory also received a 1999 GAP.

Information included above was provided by artist at the time of application.